


If We Both Pretend

by DreamerInSilico



Series: Angela Ziegler, Gay Disaster [2]
Category: Overwatch (Video Game)
Genre: F/F, Lyric Prompt, Post-Fall of Overwatch, backstory largely implied, but Angela's been working to help Amelie regain her autonomy for a while, they're both technically still on opposite sides
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-02
Updated: 2019-01-02
Packaged: 2019-10-02 15:24:49
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 894
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17266673
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DreamerInSilico/pseuds/DreamerInSilico
Summary: They can't afford to be found out, not yet.  Angela is always inclined toward caution and circumspection in their time together.  Amélie is... less so.





	If We Both Pretend

**Author's Note:**

> Prompt: "So dress me up I'll like it better if we both pretend" (Janelle Monae, "Take A Byte")

“How can you just… ignore it all so easily, Amélie?” Angela asks, eyes tracing her… friend?  Lover? Girlfriend? ... _ complication _ ’s face.  They’re both risking so much to take these little interludes, these little  _ idylls _ , every few months, while the world repeatedly tries to throw itself into chaos.  

She’d be fooling herself to think Amélie really cares about the world.  She doesn’t. (Hell, she had been lukewarm on the whole ‘saving the world’ business even back during Overwatch’s golden years.)  But Angela, in her middle years now, finds it easier to forgive her that than perhaps she should. The world has been unkind to Amélie in a particular set of ways, and a little (a lot) of self-centeredness is perhaps in order, given the circumstances.  Most people do have to work to train themselves out of bad habits, bad influences, at some point. Most people do  _ not _ have to rebuild their personalities and interpersonal frameworks practically from scratch, as Amélie has done.  Is still doing. 

But it is difficult, nearly impossible, for Angela to throw herself into these stolen bits of time together with the kind of abandon that Amélie manages.  She is not built that way, for starters: Angela is a creature of prudence and caution and careful planning. Amélie had been almost nothing - a cruel, disinterested ghost - without her passions, her dramatic flair, her daring hedonism.  It had taken Angela’s breath away, when she started to find those again. 

Amélie’s full lips tilt in a sharp amusement that Angela remembers from younger, less desperate days.  “You think it is easy, chérie?” 

And Angela has to swallow a sudden lump in her throat.  

No, it hadn’t been easy, and Angela  _ of all people _ should know that doing something  _ well _ never means that the doing is  _ easy _ .  

“...I suppose not,” she admits, reaching up apologetically to tuck a loose lock of silken, sable hair behind Amélie’s ear.  “Do you think you can teach me?” 

The smirk warms, thaws slightly into a gentler sort of smile, and Amélie cups her face in both hands to kiss her, slow and sensual.  Angela feels her face heat up, and she can’t help but lean up and into it a bit. 

“To teach  _ you _ such a thing would be a very difficult undertaking, indeed.”  Her tone is lighter now, teasing. The ways in which they are different are more completely a matter of affection than they were in the past, and this is an improvement: the past is complicated, where they are concerned.  

It’s Angela’s turn to smirk, self-deprecating.  “I know. But where would we start?” 

“You went to a few of my performances, once upon a time,” Amélie points out.  

“I did.  They were beautiful.”

“Think about why they were beautiful, chérie.” 

Angela wants to say,  _ because it was you _ , but she knows that’s not the answer Amélie is looking for.  She knows the answer will have to do with Amélie’s sensibilities, not Angela’s, and she remembers no end of commentary by Amélie on her satisfaction or lack thereof with the aesthetic details of each ballet.  The costuming, the sets, the lighting…. It had been the sort of commentary most of Angela’s brain tuned out as white noise, in a way, a background that she didn’t have or understand. But she realizes that is what she is trying to understand, now.  

To Amélie, each aesthetic aspect of the performance was important, even vital.  Not just her own skill and artistry as a ballerina. 

“Dozens of discrete elements, all chosen with harmony in mind, coming together to create a very specific aesthetic experience,” she attempts, and is relieved when Amélie rewards her with a full smile.  

“Exactly.  Would it be the same with only a piano accompanist in the studio, with no costumes, no orchestra, no set, no lights?  No, it would not. It  _ is _ not.  Every part is important to creating the spectacle of the whole.”

And Amélie is right on that, she realizes.  As much as Angela is  _ not _ an aesthete, even she can recognize that a studio practice and a performance do not have the same impact, even if the quality of the dancing itself is impeccable in both scenarios.  

“And the spectacle helps with immersion,” Angela offers with a nod.  

“It is very important to immersion, yes.” 

And so, Angela comes to a conclusion, and a decision, that may help her, and will definitely delight Amélie, regardless.  

“So,” she says, taking a breath and trying to iron the nerves from her smile.  “Let’s go out tonight, then. One of the fancy places you like and I’m always saying we should avoid.  And you tell me - I get veto powers, but you can tell me what to wear.” Angela’s resistance to the full trappings of a mysterious, even glamorous, couple with money doesn’t really make them safer, she admits to herself, now.  So she might as well try this full immersion thing. If it’s not  _ easy _ for Amélie, it certainly will not be easy for her, but knowing that even Amélie has to  _ try _ paradoxically makes it seem in nearer reach for Angela, rather than farther.  

“Oh, Angela,” Amélie breathes, and her eyes have lit up like full harvest moons, moons Angela hung in the sky, and  _ any _ degree of primping and fussing tonight is worth it for this look on her face.  “That sounds wonderful.”


End file.
